Early Byzantine ‘Basket’ Capitals in Churches and Monasteries of the Holy Land: Stylistic and Morphological Synthesis

Abstract

To the best of my knowledge, all Early Byzantine “basket” capitals discovered in the churches and monastery of the Holy Land were included in this article. There are 13 in number, all carved from limestone. Seven of them were found in Jerusalem, including the Holy Sepulchre; five - in the monasteries of the Judean desert, one in the Judean hills and two in Samaria. The majority of these churches/monasteries ranked high in the hierarchy of the Holy Sites, and such type of capitals might be considered luxurious. The geographical distribution of the items let to the assumption that they were locally produced in one of the workshops in Jerusalem or its suburbs, and their subsequent delivery to the other sites via roads. One “basket” capital was discovered in the Golan synagogue in Umm el-Qanatir. it features quite a different tradition as compared to the ecclesiastical. Stylistic analysis of the capitals, their comparison with each other, to the marble and limestone parallels from other regions show a high level of creativity, which implied free artistic experiments with patterns (especially on the calathus rim) and proportions, but still within strict order canons. The earliest local limestone capitals predate the marble capitals from Constantinople and elsewhere.